The Green Push for a Basic Income
Lessons from the Green Party’s Basic Income plans for the UK.
Over in the US, it is presidential candidate Andrew Yang who is getting people excited about his ‘Freedom Dividend’ — his version of Basic Income. Yang’s proposals are for a very ‘ambitious’ per person amount (for adults) and would involve pretty big changes to the US tax regime.
Here in the UK, it’s the Green Party that has been most explicit and forthright in their support for Basic Income. Basic Income is official Green Party policy and has been for some time.
And their specific, costed Basic Income proposals are worth a closer look, even for people outside the UK, because they sit very much at the more realistic, modest and affordable end of the spectrum, as far as Basic Income proposals go. In the ongoing debate over whether some form of Basic Income is financially ‘affordable’ or ‘realistic,’ these are the sort of proposals that most clearly demonstrates that it can be.
When writing about Basic Income, I generally write for an international audience. Thus, I mainly write about the general principles of the idea, rather than the particulars of specific proposals in a specific country.
I say Basic Income is easily affordable — both in terms of the economics of real resources and…
